Saint Joseph Catholic Church

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Criminal charges against Father Joseph Walsh were dropped in 2020, but the Perth priest, who had previously asserted his innocence, has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to reimburse his former parish in a civil settlement.

On June 9, 1988, Islam became the state religion of Bangladesh, and a protest took place on the law’s anniversary. The South Asian nation of 163 million (map) is 89% Muslim and 9% Hindu; Pope Francis made an apostolic journey there in 2017.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Lithuania’s Seimas (parliament) violated a human rights treaty when it refused to grant official recognition to a pagan group. The nation’s bishops have not objected to government recognition of Protestant bodies, but did object to the recognition of the pagan group. “Nor does it escape the Court’s attention that a letter from a Catholic authority had also been delivered to the Seimas and been quoted before the Seimas during the process of recognition,” the Court ruled. “involvement in the procedure for granting authorization of a recognized ecclesiastical authority cannot be reconciled with the State’s duty of neutrality and impartiality.”

Mary McAleese, Ireland’s president from 1997 to 2011, said in a lecture at Oxford that “it is difficult, arguably impossible, to sustain any longer the proposition that the 37,000 babies who are baptized every single day into the Catholic Church have, as a consequence of that christening, made promises which bind them to serious lifelong obligations.”

The bishops’ statement carries added signficances because Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation. The nation of 214 million (map) is 46% Muslim, 46% Christian (36% Protestant, 10% Catholic), and 7% ethnic religionist.

The nation’s brutal totalitarian regime confiscated Catholic secondary schools in 2018 and medical facilities in 2019; it is now threatening to confiscate other schools. “The schools and clinics confiscated or closed, or about to be confiscated or closed, are the legitimate property of the Catholic Church,” the bishops said. “We declare again that she [the Church] will never cease to demand the return of the social institutions forcibly taken from her and the right to perform all the services of which she has been deprived.”

The Archdiocese of Chicago has lifted most of its Covid protocols: masks are no longer required, holy water fonts may be filled, Communion on the tongue is permitted, and the sign of peace is “restored in whatever form is comfortable for those at Mass.”

A federal appeals court has blocked enforcement of the Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act, which would have banned physicians from killing unborn children with Down syndrome, as well as most abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy. The ruling was 3-0 against the latter provision, and 2-1 on the Down syndrome provision.